Vic and Bob's House of Fools interview: 'I did lose my testicles'

They conquered panel shows with Shooting Stars and now they're hoping to have the same success with their very first sitcom.

Vic and Bob's House of Fools is an early contender for the silliest show of 2014, but it could well also be one of the funniest.

Pett

Digital Spy caught up with the comedy legends to try to make some sense of their surreal series.

Have you ever actually lived together?Bob: "I'd be too messy for Jim. I s**t in cups. And I wee in cans. I drink a can and then I have a wee into the can. It's exactly the same amount of liquid when you wee it back into the can. It's beautiful."Vic: "Does it have the same amount of froth?"Bob: "No, it's more watery."Vic: "What do you do with it then?"Bob: "I just feel a bit sad when I see it the next morning. I pour it down the sink. I'm not proud of it. You wouldn't live with it, would you?"Vic: "No, I don't think I would."

Are you fans of sitcoms?Vic: "I used to love Dad's Army. And Fawlty Towers."Bob: "I used to love Steptoe. My mum didn't use to let me watch it. I liked it for that."

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Have you seen any of the recent BBC hits like Miranda and Mrs Brown's Boys?Vic: "I've seen a bit of both of them. I like Modern Family. They're so good at it, the Americans."Bob: "Modern Family is incredible. It's amazing."Vic: "It's almost as clever as this, what we've done. There's always an intriguing yarn and it's all neatly tied up together at the end."Bob: "They're so good at in America."Vic: "Frasier is very good."Bob: *Hums Frasier theme tune* "I think 'f**k off' as soon as I hear that. 'Scrambled eggs... f**k off.'' I do it along to the tune, so it's not nasty."

How would you explain House of Fools?Bob: "We've taken old fashioned sitcom standards like, 'Look after this while I'm gone' and you know things are going to go wrong. The difference for us is that the thing is a pork pie."

The first episode centres around watching the Conan the Barbarian movie. Are you fans?Bob: "When it first came out, I thought it was a f**king good film. I hold my hand up."Vic: "The first one was great. The second one was diabolical. When we were writing this, it was on telly, so I rewatched it. It was terrible. It's been tarnished by time."

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How long have you had the idea of doing a sitcom?Vic: "We wanted to do this for years, but we were forced to do other things."Bob: "Mind you, we never did tell anyone Jim."Vic: "We did Catterick. We wanted to do more and they said, 'No, do more Shooting Stars'. People just wanted more panel shows. Now people seem to want sitcoms. Which is good news."

In one scene, Vic ends up stuck in a wall and has his testicles stretched. What was the inspiration?Bob: "That actually did happen."Vic: "We were trying to break into a bookshop. Bob really got stuck. Was it Ted Hughes who did the Iron Man? He really wanted a copy of that book, but the shop was shut. It was midnight and we tried to get in. So that all resolved itself, we wrote that story down and it made it into the script."Bob: "I actually did lose my testicles. Do you remember in the old days in school fields, they used to have metal hooks on the back of goalposts? I slid down one one day and it opened up my testicle sack."Vic: "Do you know what happened? They opened up his sack and put his testicles back in the wrong way around. And that's why his kids are cross-eyed."Bob: "That's a f**king true story. When they came out looking like they do, the doctors said, 'Have you ever had your b*llocks split?'"Vic: "The same thing happened to me on the mast of a yacht. That's why my kids are bow-legged."

Pett

Is there any progress on a Vic and Bob movie?Bob: "I think this is the gospel truth - there is a company, a big company, who are just waiting for the script. But that was a year ago."Vic: "We said yes, but then we did this."Bob: "It's quite easy to get a movie. We wrote a few pages, went to a company, early the next morning they said, 'Yes, here's the money'."Vic: "Should we say who it is?"Bob: "I don't think we should say who it is."Vic: "Nah, you're right. So, we went for this meeting with Mr Kellogg..."

House of Fools starts tonight (January 14) at 10pm on BBC Two.

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